Cadmium Red Color Codes

Cadmium Red is a mid-tone, vivid red with the hex code #E30022, RGB values of 227, 0, 34 and an HSL value of hsl(351, 100%, 45%).

HEX	#E30022
RGB	227, 0, 34
HSL	hsl(351, 100%, 45%)
HSV	351°, 100%, 89%
CMYK	0%, 100%, 85%, 11%
LAB	47.56, 73.76, 49.15
CIELCHuv	47.56, 155.11, 10.61°

Nearest Pantone: PMS 185 C ΔE 4.2 · approximate
Nearest CSS name: crimson ΔE 15.8

Community source color-name-list, community color-name index

Cadmium Red Color Hex Code

The Cadmium Red color hex code is #E30022. Those six digits are three pairs, E3 for red, 00 for green and 22 for blue, which is the same triplet a browser reads from the CSS value below.

#E30022

Cadmium Red Color RGB Code

The Cadmium Red RGB code is rgb(227, 0, 34). Red carries the most light at 227 of 255, which is what puts this color where it sits on the wheel.

rgb(227, 0, 34)

Cadmium Red Color HSV Code

The Cadmium Red HSV code is 351°, 100%, 89%. Read it as a hue of 351 degrees, 100% saturation and 89% value, which is the form most color pickers use because moving one number changes one thing.

351°, 100%, 89%

Cadmium Red Color CIELChuv Code

The Cadmium Red CIELCHuv code is 47.56, 155.11, 10.61°. Unlike hex or RGB this one is perceptual: lightness 48 means mid-toned to the eye rather than to the screen, and chroma 155 is how far it sits from grey.

47.56, 155.11, 10.61°

Tonal scale

What are Cadmium Red Color Palettes?

A shade mixes toward black, a tint toward white, a tone toward grey. Every step keeps the hue and is copy-ready.

Shades, toward black

Tints, toward white

Tones, toward grey

Open in the shades & tints generator →

Palettes

What are Cadmium Red Color Palette Codes?

Each of these is a hue rotation from #E30022. They are generated, not curated, so they are exact.

Complementary

Half a turn away is #00E3C1, a light, vivid teal. This is the widest separation the wheel offers, and the reason complementary pairs are the default for anything that must stand out. Both are saturated, so give the complement much less area than the base or the two will fight.

Analogous

Either side sit #E30094 and #E34F00, 30 degrees out. Low tension by construction: useful when you need several related tones that still feel like one choice.

Triadic

#22E300 and #0022E3 complete an even 120 degree split. Three fully independent hues, so one has to lead: keep this base dominant and let the other two appear in small quantities.

Split-complementary

Instead of the direct complement, this takes the two hues either side of it: #00E34F and #0094E3. Almost the same contrast, without the edge shimmer a true complementary pair produces at high saturation.

Tetradic

Two complementary pairs forming a rectangle: this base with #00E3C1, and #94E300 with #5000E3. The richest of the five and the hardest to balance, so treat this base as the lead and hold the other three well back.

See these on the color wheel →

Accessibility

Measured against white and against black, with a separate verdict for each element type. Small text, large text and UI components have different thresholds, so one pass or fail for the whole color would be wrong roughly a third of the time.

White background

4.90:1

4.90

contrast ratio on white background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Passes	Fails
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Passes	Passes
UI component needs 3:1	Passes	n/a

Black background

4.29:1

4.29

contrast ratio on black background

Element	AA	AAA
Small text needs 4.5:1 / 7:1	Fails	Fails
Large text needs 3:1 / 4.5:1	Passes	Fails
UI component needs 3:1	Passes	n/a

Cadmium Red clears WCAG AA against white at 4.90:1, so it is safe for body copy as well as headings. Text placed on it should be white, which gives 4.90:1. It is a highly saturated color, so it will dominate anything it sits beside. Give it space rather than surrounding it with other strong colors.

Check Cadmium Red against another color →

Color vision

How Cadmium Red looks with color blindness

Around 300 million people see color differently from the way it is specified. Each card shows the actual color beside how it appears, and how common that form of vision is.

Protanopia

About 1% of men

actual

#B0AF1D

Cadmium Red changes substantially here. ΔE 93.4

No working red cones. Reds darken sharply and drift toward the same muddy olive as green.

Deuteranopia

About 1% of men

actual

#B8C21B

Cadmium Red changes substantially here. ΔE 101.9

No working green cones. With the milder deuteranomaly at nearer 6% of men, this is by far the most common form, and the one worth designing around.

Tritanopia

About 1 in 10,000

actual

#DE1817

Cadmium Red shifts slightly here. ΔE 5.9

No working blue cones. Blues shift toward green and yellows toward pink. Rare, and unlike the others it is not sex-linked, so it affects men and women equally.

Achromatopsia

About 1 in 30,000

actual

#717171

Cadmium Red changes substantially here. ΔE 88.6

No color vision at all. Also a fair proxy for how the color survives a greyscale print or a failing screen.

To a deuteranope, the most common form, Cadmium Red reads as #B8C21B. That is a shift of ΔE 101.9, so it is a different color to roughly one man in sixteen. It sits in the red end of the spectrum, which is exactly where red-green deficiency does its damage. Never pair it with a green of similar lightness to signal a difference in meaning: to a large minority the two become one color. The widest shift is under deuteranopia, at ΔE 101.9. The rule this leads to needs no simulator: never let color be the only thing carrying a message. Add a label, an icon, or a clear difference in lightness, and the problem disappears for everyone.

Simulate a whole palette →

Snippets

Using Cadmium Red in code

:root {
  --cadmium-red: #E30022;
}

.example {
  color: var(--cadmium-red);
}

// tailwind.config.js
theme: {
  extend: {
    colors: {
      'cadmium-red': '#E30022',
    },
  },
}

// SwiftUI takes 0–1 components, not 0–255.
let cadmiumRed = Color(
    red: 0.890,
    green: 0.000,
    blue: 0.133
)

<!-- res/values/colors.xml -->
<color name="cadmium_red">#E30022</color>

// Flutter wants ARGB: FF for full opacity, then the hex.
const cadmiumRed = Color(0xFFE30022);

Meaning

What is the Meaning of Cadmium Red Color?

Cadmium Red reads as urgency, appetite and alarm. It is saturated enough to dominate anything it sits beside, and at 100% saturation with a perceptual lightness of 48 it behaves as a warm color, which is the practical reason it turns up where it does.

What are Other Names of Cadmium Red Color?

The closest CSS keyword is Crimson (#DC143C), though it is not a match: Delta-E 15.8 means the difference is visible side by side. For print the nearest Pantone is PMS 185 C at #E8112D. The name Cadmium Red comes from the community color-name index rather than a standards body, so you will meet it under other names elsewhere.

How is Cadmium Red Color Made?

On a screen Cadmium Red is made by additive light: 227 red, 0 green and 34 blue out of 255, with red leading and 0 as the floor. In print it is subtractive instead, mixed as 0%, 100%, 85%, 11%. Starting from the pure hue at 351 degrees, Cadmium Red is close to the pure hue, with little white or black in it.